Deborah and Mark

For as long as I can remember, I always wanted to be a mom. I was the oldest child with a brother and sister that is 11 years younger then me and a sister 17 years younger then me. I spent a lot of time watching them grow. Little did I know the struggle I would have.

When I met my husband, I told him my dream of being a mom and having a family and he was onboard. We decided to start trying once we were married and I focused on losing weight in the meantime. I was at my goal weight and on our wedding night, August 14 2010 our journey of starting a family began. We tried for one year with no luck. I had regular menstruations and was healthy, so our hearts were breaking. We went to the Doctor and he referred me to a local fertility clinic.

We did all the preliminary testing - blood work, ultra sounds, tubal dye test and sperm analysis and nothing was found. My heart broke again - I was hoping for an answer. During the two years with this clinic, the doctor prescribed Clomid with timed intercourse for a couple cycles with no luck. We added some femera - no luck again. We then decided it was time to move on to IUI - we did medicated IUI and some with injections - 7 to be exact. Two grand later, no success.

Our hearts were officially broken. We didn’t know what to do next. Our friends around us had their growing families. It was hard to be around anyone with a child. I isolated myself and would spend countless nights crying because I felt broken. I am woman. I was born to carry and have a child. We decided to take a break as my husband and I weres becoming very emotionally drained. I went back to see my family physician as I was concerned about my depression. I spent the time away from fertility treatments treating my depression, and re-losing all the weight that I gained when doing fertility treatments. I had no luck with the weight loss no matter what I tried.

Finally after 1.5 years of just focusing on ourselves, we decided it was time to try again. This time we referred ourselves to a different clinic. Since it had been so long since our last testing we had to start the process again with all the initial testing. This time - I was diagnosed with PCOS right from the start. We completed one IUI with injections, but it was a failed cycle. I was so hopeful since I was being treated for PCOS. In our follow up appointment, the doctor told us that, given our history, IVF would be best as my IUI cycle was perfect and he didn’t want to waste anymore time or money on something that in the past had failed (8 times).

I always thought menstruation cramps were suppose to hurt. I thought it was normal. I was always proactive and took medication so it would barely hurt. I told my Doctor and he was concerned. He suggested I have a laparoscopy, DNC, another tubal test and hysteroscopy. When they went in, they found moderate endometriosis. As a result, my bowels, tubes and ovaries were stuck together. They stated that they did the best they could to fix it…. It is now April 29th 2015… 4 years 9 months since we started and we are still childless. We have spent the last 6 months working 100hr weeks, and saving all that we can for IVF. We remain hopeful, but we are still deeply hurt. We are preparing for our next chapter in our journey within the next couple months and hoping this is it, because we are 1 in 6.